Saturday, May 5, 2012

36

It was thirty-six years ago today that I snapped on my old ball and chain. That's more than half my life, thirty-six years. Lately I wonder sometimes if it was worth it.

Bobby's gotten mean and cranky as he's gotten older. He doesn't like me to speak to him if he's watching a trial on TruTV or if he's skimming though his mail or talking on the telephone. Those same rules do not apply to me when I am engaged in some similar activity, though. I am fair game, 24/7.

He's started complaining about people we encounter on the street. He has told young men with thick arms and dirty hair to get out of his way and to stop playing guitar outside his gate and to go and get a job if they want a cigarette. He's begun to refer to pedestrians by rude, nasty names while riding in the car, loudly enough for them to hear him.

He'll say to me, "Do you think she heard me? I wanted her to hear me. Yes, I called you a cow, you heifer!"

He's not above dumpster-diving if he believes there might be something there that he can use. We have a coat rack in our living room he found this way. It's held up by a web of fishing line attached at strategic points to the wall behind it.

Every time we leave the house, he insists on snipping gardenia blossoms off one of his bushes and passing them out to the shopkeepers on the block, whether they like gardenias or not. He also saves our plastic shopping bags to distribute to those same shopkeepers so they can recycle them.

Thirty-six years.

I wonder sometimes what might have been if I had not said yes thirty-six years ago.

It's like one morning, you roll over and open your eyes and look around the room, and you see that, while you were sleeping, your whole life happened.

10 comments:

happy anniversary. i suppose we all discover that for better or worse means just that. hopefully better comes around again. the gardenias are a good sign. that second to last graph gave me chills. some days, it feels just like that.

Thank you for the well wishes. I'm fine, and I will be fine. Sometimes you just feel old and find yourself wondering about choices made and chances deferred. " 'C'est la vie,' say the old folks, 'it goes to show you never can tell.' "

And PS, happy birthday! I can't believe I babbled on the other day and never thought to wish you your own best wishes.

It's wonderful to have someone who actually cares about you. And when we think that life is a dream, that can be scary sometimes, but mostly I find that it's a comfort. Enjoy life, happy anniversary and many more. sp